15 May 2020 - - French biotechnology company Transgene (Euronext Paris: TNG) has released new "highly promising" preclinical data demonstrating the broad therapeutic potential of BT-001, an anti-CTLA4 antibody-encoding oncolytic virus, against solid tumors, the company said.

These data will be presented at the AACR 2020 Virtual annual meeting II.

BT-001 is a multifunctional oncolytic virus being co-developed by Transgene and BioInvent. It has been engineered to encode a Treg-depleting, anti-CTLA4 antibody generated by BioInvent's proprietary n-CoDeR/F.I.R.S.T platforms, and GM-CSF.

BT-001's activity was further enhanced when combined with anti-PD-1 antibody therapy opening up the potential for powerful dual checkpoint blockade treatment regimens.

These promising findings will be presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Virtual annual meeting II, taking place June 22-24. The abstract is posted online TODAY.

The oncolytic virus, the anti-CTLA4 and the GM-CSF therapeutic strategies that underpin BT-001 have already demonstrated activity in humans based on their ability to induce a fundamental change in the tumor microenvironment and anti-tumor activity.

Looking at the clinical landscape, BioInvent and Transgene are confident that BT-001 could either be used as a monotherapy or be associated with standard of care immunotherapy options such as anti-PD1/anti-PD-L1 therapies in order to deliver improved clinical outcomes for patients with solid tumors.

Title of the poster: "BT-001, an oncolytic Vaccinia virus armed with a Treg-depletion-optimized recombinant human anti-CTLA4 antibody and GM-CSF to target the tumor microenvironment."

Transgene (Euronext: TNG) is a publicly traded French biotechnology company focused on designing and developing targeted immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer. Transgene's programs utilize viral vector technology with the goal of indirectly or directly killing cancer cells.

The company's clinical-stage programs consist of two therapeutic vaccines (TG4001 for the treatment of HPV-positive cancers, and TG4050, the first individualised therapeutic vaccine based on the myvac platform) as well as two oncolytic viruses (TG6002 for the treatment of solid tumors, and BT-001, the first oncolytic virus based on the Invir.IO platform).

With Transgene's myvac platform, therapeutic vaccination enters the field of precision medicine with a novel immunotherapy that is fully tailored to each individual.

The myvac approach allows the generation of a virus-based immunotherapy that encodes patient-specific mutations identified and selected by Artificial Intelligence capabilities provided by its partner NEC.

With its proprietary platform Invir.IO, Transgene is building on its viral vector engineering expertise to design a new generation of multifunctional oncolytic viruses. Transgene has an ongoing Invir.IO collaboration with AstraZeneca.

BioInvent International AB (OMXS: BINV) is a clinical stage company that discovers and develops novel and first-in-class immuno-modulatory antibodies for cancer therapies, with two ongoing programs in Phase l/ll clinical trials for the treatment of hematological cancer and solid tumors, respectively.

Two preclinical programmes in solid tumors are expected to have entered clinical trials by the end of 2020.

The company's validated, proprietary F.I.R.S.TTM technology platform simultaneously identifies both targets and the antibodies that bind to them, generating many promising new drug candidates to fuel the company's own clinical development pipeline or for additional licensing and partnering.

The company generates revenues from research collaborations and license agreements with multiple top-tier pharmaceutical companies, as well as from producing antibodies for third parties in the company's fully integrated manufacturing unit.

The press release contains statements about the future, consisting of subjective assumptions and forecasts for future scenarios.

Predictions for the future only apply as the date they are made and are, by their very nature, in the same way as research and development work in the biotech segment, associated with risk and uncertainty. With this in mind, the actual outcome may deviate significantly from the scenarios described in this press release.